The Dead and The Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Dead and The Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Last Survivors, book 2
reviewed by Sue
Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated readers with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event–an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-year-old Puerto Rican Alex Morales. When Alex’s parents disappear in the aftermath of tidal waves, he must care for his two younger sisters, even as Manhattan becomes a deadly wasteland, and food and aid dwindle.
Spoilers ahead!
The Dead and The Gone follows the same series of events as Life as We Knew It, except this time around we get to see the fallout as it happens in New York City, and from the vantage point of a 17 year old male, Alex Morales. Alex is thrust into the role of primary caregiver of his two younger sisters after his father is presumed dead in the tsunamis and his mother likely died in the subway tunnels which subsequently flooded after the tides rose.
I’m not sure if I liked this book better than the first in the series, but I was riveted by the differences between survival tactics. In Life as we knew it, Miranda was lucky enough to have a mom that was a quick thinker and raided the local grocery store for food and supplies. In The Dead and the Gone, Alex was lucky to get a small handout from his uncle, he had $50 in cash and had to resort to robbing the dead in order to find items to barter for food. I’ve read reviews which say this is unrealistic…I don’t think it is. People will do anything to survive and there are always those out there who look to get something in return.
The religious aspect that bothered me in the first book was ever present in this one, but again I thought it was an excellent portrayal of a devout teenager in crisis. Alex and his sister Bri were much more devout than their youngest sister Julie, but in times such as described in the book, it’s very natural to want to be angry and confused and ask questions of God. It happens.
The resources available to those left in NYC were much greater than Miranda had in semi-rural Pennsylvania; there just seemed to be more of everything, including volcanic ash and danger. Bri falls violently ill with adult onset asthma and when Alex attempts to barter a winning lottery ticket for safe passage out of the city, his “friend” Harvey wants to trade the youngest of the bunch, Julie. It was a disturbing scene to say the least.
That being said, there were times when each member of the Morales family annoyed the crap out of me. Alex was so stuck in gender roles that he didn’t even know how to boil macaroni. I was so thoroughly annoyed by that, and it was obvious his kid sister was as well. He kept expecting Julie and Bri to do everything around the house simply because he was the one robbing bodies and getting food. It’s understandable that he didn’t want them to know what he was doing to get the food, but again…desperate times call for desperate measures.
Briana’s behavior irritated me at times too. She was so convinced that her parents were still alive that she regularly fought with Alex about leaving any time he brought it up. She insisted they couldn’t leave New York until their parents returned home; up to the point of wishing for something to happen in order to keep them all in New York after Alex had the good luck of finding safe passage for all three of them out of the city. Bri’s desperate hope that her parents were still alive cost the rest of her family many chances of getting out of the city, and ultimately led to heartbreak. I appreciated that she had so much hope, but her energy could have been spent getting them to a safe place instead of clinging to false hope that her parents were still alive.
Julie was a pretty normal 13 year old and showed remarkable mettle through the whole book. She was perhaps the least annoying of the entire bunch.
As a whole, I give The Dead and The Gone a 3 out of 5 moons
The story is fantastic, it’s just unfortunate that the characters get on my nerves so much. I would recommend this book to everyone from ages 14 and up. I think even adults will find this a very compelling read.
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